While the world mourns the loss of Michael Jackson, Vanity Fair has cooked up a somewhat controversial (and fairly random) look back at Heath Ledger's final days, with quotes from his agent, his vocal coach, director Terry Gilliam and Doctor Parnassus cinematographer Nicola Pecorini. The article, published in part on Vanity Fair's website, is broken into different paragraphs with titles like "How chronic insomnia may have led to his death" and "How his relationship failed." Did the world -- not to mention Ledger's fans, friends and family -- really need all these old wounds dug up and scraped for a little extra attention? Probably not.

Of all the quotes, the most fascinating seem to be the ones which talk about The Dark Knight, and how Ledger's pay-or-play deal allowed him to do whatever he wanted with the role of Joker seeing as he was to still receive a paycheck regardless of whether he remained in the movie. According to Pecorini, Ledger was actually hoping his performance was way too out there and that he'd get fired, allowing him to take a nice, long paid vacation. Ledger's agent, Steven Alexander, sort of backs up the statement with this one about the actor's attitude toward big summer movies, saying he "was always hesitant to be in a summer blockbuster, with the dolls and action figures and everything else that comes with one of those movies. He was afraid it would define him and limit his choices."

The article also delves into Ledger's rampant drug use, eventual sobriety and just how rough his break-up with Michelle Williams was. It also links off to a 2000 photo spread featuring the actor in some, um, interesting poses. Definitely an odd piece, and I'm sure some will be critical of Vanity Fair for running it. Check it out over here and let us know what you think.

[via The Playlist]

Bet you didn't know there's a Shockwave game for Year One. That's because Shockwave, well, kinda sucks. I can't even get the game to play on my Mac; I tried Safari and Firefox, so if anyone would like to give it a whirl and report back let me know. So far all I know is that you try and herd ox without making them nervous and run away.

Granted, Sony's Year One is not exactly a property ripe for video game adaptation, and its target audience is much broader than movies whose studios put in a lot of effort at viral buzz, but if it's that the case, why bother even making one at all? It's shoddy and looks like the marketing department already knew Year One (which I liked, by the way) would already be poorly reviewed and have a weak box office showing despite the big names attached.

On the other hand, The Dark Knight, which was distributed by Warner Bros., built up a ton of online buzz from its viral websites like WhySoSerious.com, Friends of Harvey Dent, and others with help from the marketing company 42 Entertainment. The Dark Knight would have been very successful even without these sites, which took a lot of effort and money to put together. Same with the campaign for Terminator Salvation and its Skynet Research site. It's a no-brainer summer blockbuster, destined to rake in the bucks despite the many complaints from critics and fans.

Some critics' groups rush to hand out awards weeks before the year of eligility is over. Other groups, like the Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy & Horror Films, prefer to take their time. The 35th annual Saturn Awards were presented last night in beautiful downtown Burbank, California, honoring the best in genre films for the 2008 calendar year. The top awards, as listed by FearNet, went to Iron Man (Science Fiction), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Fantasy), Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Horror), and The Dark Knight (Action / Adventure / Thriller).

The Academy also found room to honor Angelina Jolie as Best Actress for Changeling, which makes me wonder how that film could possibly qualify as a genre flick. Horror, perhaps? More major awards went to Robert Downey, Jr. as Best Actor and Jon Favreau as Best Director for Iron Man, Heath Ledger as Best Supporting Actor, and Tilda Swinton as Best Supporting Actress. Wall-E took home Best Animated Film and Let the Right One In was presented with the Best International Film award. And here are the awards that make the Saturns stand out for genre fans: Lance Henriksen received the Life Career Award, and Leonard Nimoy nabbed the Lifetime Achievement Award.

I was following the awards show via Twitter, and the most entertaining account was the one by loquaciousmuse; she made it sound like a blast. If you're out of state, $40 buys an Academy membership with award voting privileges. The least expensive in-state membership is $150, which also grants access to more than 100 special screenings.

It's hard to believe it's been a year since The Dark Knight, and the Batman 3 rumor mill just hasn't stopped grinding. Someone, somewhere, is always trying to flog a rumor of who will be Catwoman, Penguin, Riddler, or Robin. When they get tired of fantasy casting, they ponder when Christopher Nolan will abandon this Inception thing, and get going on Batman 3.

In a piece passed wildly around the net, Batman on Film is reporting that Nolan is very uninterested in returning to Gotham City. The story goes that Heath Ledger's death upset him greatly, and dismantled any and all plans he had for a third installment. The Joker was set to return (is that really a surprise?), and now there's simply no story. While Nolan and David S. Goyer are working on ideas, it's unlikely you'll see anything before 2012 at the earliest, with 2013 being more likely.

Back in December when new Batman rumors were swirling faster than the wind between buildings in Gotham City, the Brits from across the pond were having a blast chucking out one false casting rumor after the next. The truth at the time (and it still is to a degree) was that Christopher Nolan hadn't even started work on a script for the next Batman movie, and casting the thing was still a ways out.

One rumor that popped up had to do with Eddie Murphy becoming The Riddler in the new film. We all knew it was bullsh*t at the time, but it was finally confirmed by the man himself, Eddie Murphy, during an appearance on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien last night. The clip isn't online yet (I'm sure it'll hit Hulu in the next day or so), but Conan actually brought up the Riddler rumor to Eddie and the actor laughed it off as such after acknowledging that he heard it too and thought it was hilarious. After that, though, he did say that he'd actually like to star in (and I'm paraphrasing) "one of those Batman type films," which means we could see Murphy donning a tight superhero suit one day soon. Will he be The Riddler? Probably not. But I wouldn't be surprised if Eddie gets in on this superhero craze in some way, shape or form in the near future.

Update: Thanks to commenter John for reminding me that Murphy said he'd love to play Egghead instead of Riddler, and proceeded to do the Egghead voice as Vincent Price. Funny stuff.

Update 2: Video of this interview is now available at NBC's site. And I'm not reminded that they also discussed James Brown, and Eddie said he'd love to see Wesley Snipes take on the role.

And don't forget to vote for your favorite all-time Eddie Murphy character over at Moviefone.

I'm sure if you pick apart the themes and scenes from both films, you'll find that The Dark Knight and Fight Club have lots in common, though for the purpose of this post we're talking about a song called "Where Is My Mind?" from The Pixies. In David Fincher's Fight Club, the song played during the final scene as Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter lock hands and watch the city in front of them crumble to the ground. Remember? Well in honor of The Dark Knight's television premiere on HBO this Saturday, June 13, the cable channel is airing two pretty groovy commercials featuring the same exact Pixies song mixed with a bunch of those memorable (yet haunting) pieces of dialogue and scenes from last year's biggest film.

I couldn't have said it better than Brian over at MTV's Splash Page, who notes: "The shots of the burned out buildings and The Joker's hospital demolition scene are particularly effective with the music for anyone who has heard in the background during Tyler Durden's anarchist attack on civilization in "Fight Club." It's also a great match for an in intensely cerebral film like "Dark Knight" where the hero's sanity is constantly being picked apart as much as the villain's." So who's staying in with me on Saturday night to welcome Batman to HBO?

Watch both HBO commercials and the scene from Fight Club after the jump.

Here's what we currently know about Christopher Nolan's between-Batmans project, Inception:

• It is not, as initially asserted by a commenter, concerning "a war for the colonization of Venus."


• It is more likely along the lines of a sci-fi action film "set within the architecture of the mind" (which, coming from the brains behind The Dark Knight, The Prestige, and Memento, is a scary-thrilling thought).


• Currently on board are Leonardo DiCaprio (as some sort of CEO), Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Cillian Murphy, and Michael Caine...

...and, according to THR, rounding out the ensemble (for now) are Ken "Batman Begins" Watanabe as a blackmailing villain and Tom "apparently awesome in Bronson" Hardy as a colleague of DiCaprio's.

Sorry to be Avatar-level vague, but with a cast like this and a crew like that, there's little left to do but twiddle our thumbs and hope for the best between now and next summer. Either that, or Nolan just recast most of the third Batman film and doesn't want Christian Bale to know...

Earlier this week, fellow Cinematical scribe Scott Weinberg pointed me to a cool little video that I watched twice and then forgot. He reminded me again and the pattern was repeated -- or so I thought. Because that weird little piece of wild visual magic keeps popping up in my mind. I can't let it go. You can allow it to infect your brain by watching Carousel at Stink Digital (or down below). That's the same company that helped create the commercials in which 8 Mile and Die Hard were reimagined as 50s French classics.

So, going in, you know that Carousel is an advertisement, in this case for a technology product I can't possibly afford right now (a new model of television), though, again, it's not a hard sell. Of course, some of the most creative and jaw-dropping works are made as part of advertising campaigns. Just think back to Ridley Scott's startling 1984 ad for the Apple Macintosh: I don't remember anything about the Super Bowl game that surrounded the ad, but I definitely remember that woman tossing her hammer at Big Brother.

Directed by Adam Berg, Carousel inevitably brings to mind the amazing Bullet Time scenes in The Matrix, as applied to the opening title sequence of Watchmen, with a tip of the hat to The Dark Knight. The viewer is invited to take a "frozen moment" tour of a crime scene filled with guns, broken glass, and general carnage. I found it haunting and strangely beautiful.


Philips : Carousel from Sawacs on Vimeo.

(Thanks to @wlmager.)

It's the sort of story that puts Christian Bale's un-Batman-like rant into perspective -- Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan's brother may be a murderer.

Matthew Francis Nolan, 40, is wanted in Costa Rica for the kidnapping and murder of a Florida businessman. Nolan allegedly presented himself to the now-deceased Robert C. Cohen as an investor, claiming he wanted to do business in South America. But his real mission, authorities say, was to get $7 million that Cohen owed another man in Florida.

Nolan's accomplice, Douglas Mejia, has already been convicted of kidnapping Cohen when he and Nolan attempted to extort the money from Cohen's family. When that failed, cops say that the pair killed him.

Nolan was already under investigation by the FBI regarding an unrelated $700,000 bank-fraud scheme. He's now being held in the U.S., awaiting extradition.

Christopher Nolan collaborated with another brother, Jonathan, on the scripts for Memento, The Prestige, and The Dark Knight, and Jonathan is credited with the upcoming Terminator: Salvation -- it looks like they don't have to search too far to find inspiration for the darker themes in their screenplays. A lot of families have black sheep, but who knew that Nolan's own brother might be the Joker?